[SCAP-On-Apple] [Fed-Talk] SCAP-On-Apple: I cannot find any automated SCAP content on the site.

Tue Jan 29 11:14:21 PST 2013

As David mentioned, vulnerability content for OSX would be a great starting point for the community.

Shawn, is there an authoritative feed or source of information that could be parsed and used to auto-generate vulnerability content for OSX?

Thanks,

Danny

From: fed-talk-bounces+dhaynes=mitre.org at lists.apple.com [mailto:fed-talk-bounces+dhaynes=mitre.org at lists.apple.com] On Behalf Of David Solin
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 1:59 PM
To: fed-talk at lists.apple.com
Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] SCAP-On-Apple: I cannot find any automated SCAP content on the site.

"Our" content is just an SCAP 1.2 datastream converted from the NSA's XCCDF 1.1 content... which is automated!

The DISA content you reference below, Luis, appears to be 100% manual XCCDF; no automation at all.
On 1/29/2013 12:20 PM, Luis Nunez wrote:
Not sure if someone mention this on the tread but DISA just released a STIG for iOS 6 (XCCDF).
It contains some 60 rules.  I've not done a in-depth comparison but it looks very similar to the the jOVAL SCAP content for iOS5.  With some additional updates I could see the iOS6 STIG having all the automation capabilities (OVAL).

http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/net_perimeter/wireless/smartphone.html

-ln

On Jan 29, 2013, at 10:32 AM, John Oliver wrote:

LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) is a big-time Mac user.

From: David Solin <david at joval.org<blockedmailto:david at joval.org>>
Organization: jOVAL
Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 7:21 AM
To: Apple Fed-Talk <fed-talk at lists.apple.com<blockedmailto:fed-talk at lists.apple.com>>
Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] SCAP-On-Apple: I cannot find any automated SCAP content on the site.

The reason that NIST puts out USGCB content for Windows and Linux is that it's a funded project.  I don't personally believe that it's realistic to expect that anyone is ever going to go through the trouble to develop, test and maintain SCAP content unless that's how they're planning to feed their family -- meaning someone has to pay for it.

There are commercial vendors like SecPod who create Mac content for the purpose of selling it.  I have no idea how much Mac content they sell, but we support their efforts as part of our own (that is, jOVAL's) business development program.  If there are US government agencies (like NASA? DoD? NSA? NOAA?) that depend on Macs, then it might make sense for at least one of them to fund a position whose purpose is to create automated security content around existing best-practices like the manual STIGs.  Heck, it could even be a project for an intern!  Since the government's not in the business of selling this sort of thing, they might even decide to make it available to the public.

On the other hand, there are also vendors who release vulnerability signatures for their own products, in the form of SCAP content.  Novell (SUSE) and Cisco come to mind as examples.  Shawn continues to strongly hint (if not outright declare) that's just not going to happen, but I think a lot of people are hoping that Apple might decide to go down this route.  If they did, it would no doubt be a great starting-point for someone to put together an XCCDF benchmark.

We would be happy to work with anyone who wants to create SCAP content for OSX or iOS, to insure that there is a working open-source interpreter capable of running it.  Anyone fitting this description can send me an email to get started.

Regards,
--David Solin
On 1/29/2013 8:50 AM, Link, Peter R. wrote:
Raymond,
The whole idea of the SCAP-on-Apple project is to provide free SCAP content for OSX systems. This means providing OVAL content as well as XCCDF and CVE. I believe Apple already provides the CPE product dictionary. Some vendors have provided varying levels of XCCDF content while others have begin providing the mechanism to deliver this content to Macs and iOS devices. I've seen suggestions on the OVAL mail threads suggestions people work with Apple on this. As Shawn continues to remind us (especially me), Apple doesn't have the resources allocated to do all of this, especially with the frequency of changes software goes through and the instance amount of time it takes to get anything through a committee or standards organization.

I've also discussed the chicken and the egg aspects of SCAP and security manuals. In my mind security manuals come first followed by generation of SCAP content so that something like the federally mandated USGCB baseline configuration can be released. People will argue FDCC/USGCB never works but until you try it and determine what doesn't work, it's all talk and no action. People will argue they can configure systems better than others but will not spend the time determining if one of their settings actually puts a system at risk. Others will simple take the direction of auditors who have no familiarity with OSX and shut everything down without questioning whether there's even a security vulnerability reason to do it.

For those of you who actually have a large enough Mac installation to justify more than a couple Mac technicians, I'd suggest getting them involved in this process by working with others on OVAL development, http://oval.mitre.org<blockedhttp://oval.mitre.org> (check for mailing lists), as the first step in creating standardized system checks. Once on this list, remind the unix people that although OSX is a unix OS, it has its own way of operating, which isn't the same as linux and solaris and, therefore, needs to be thought of as a totally separate OS instead of simply trying to adapt unix tests to work with OSX. We've been there with every Windows vendor trying to force altered Windows applications onto Macs. Now unix application vendors are trying to do the same thing.

This is my final explanation and push for getting people involved in this project. I'm not a programmer, I'm a facilitator; someone who tries to get others to get together and work on a project for the common good. That common good is the automated configuration validation for continuous monitoring as required by every federal system that follows NIST special publications. Remember, CM-6, Configuration Settings, states that you have to have a documented list of settings for your system. A few other security controls tell you what some of those settings have to be but the vast majority of them have to come from somewhere/someone who has figured out what must be done to properly secure a system. My goal for a long time has been to get a USGCB baseline configuration for OSX but until we can find programmers and IT personnel who are willing to work together to put together the parts necessary for this baseline, we won't have one.

I'm done and it's before my first cup of tea (6:49am).

On Jan 28, 2013, at 12:12 PM, "Jacob, Raymond A Jr. CIV SPAWARSYSCEN-ATLANTIC, 58830" <raymond.jacob at navy.mil<blockedmailto:raymond.jacob at navy.mil>> wrote:

Shawn:
/* SCAP Content means Mac OS/X ... */
I did not see any recent messages in the SCAP-On-Apple email lists.
DoD(DISA STIG) as far as I know only has manual SCAP content
and as far as I can recall USCG referred one to the DISA STIG.

Shawn:
1. I apologize in advance for not reading carefully enough or
not understanding what I have read.

2. Can you ask your POC's at government agencies, if they can make their automated SCAP content
available to the rest of the Government Community?

3. Can you mention 3rd parties that have automated SCAP content for Mac OS/X?

Thank you,
raymond
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Fed-talk mailing list      (Fed-talk at lists.apple.com<blockedmailto:Fed-talk at lists.apple.com>)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/fed-talk/link1%40llnl.gov<blockedhttps://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/fed-talk/link1%40llnl.gov>

This email sent to link1 at llnl.gov<blockedmailto:link1 at llnl.gov>

Peter Link
Cyber Security Analyst
Cyber Security Program
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
PO Box 808, L-315
Livermore, CA 94551-0808
link1 at llnl.gov<blockedmailto:link1 at llnl.gov>

 _______________________________________________

Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

Fed-talk mailing list      (Fed-talk at lists.apple.com<blockedmailto:Fed-talk at lists.apple.com>)

Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:

https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/fed-talk/david%40joval.org<blockedhttps://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/fed-talk/david%40joval.org>

This email sent to david at joval.org<blockedmailto:david at joval.org>

--

jOVAL.org<http://jOVAL.org>: SCAP Simplified.
Learn More<blockedhttp://www.joval.org> | Features<blockedhttp://www.joval.org/features/> | Download<blockedhttp://www.joval.org/download/>
_______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Fed-talk mailing list (Fed-talk at lists.apple.com<blockedmailto:Fed-talk at lists.apple.com>) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/fed-talk/john.n.oliver.ctr%40navy.mil<blockedhttps://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/fed-talk/john.n.oliver.ctr%40navy.mil> This email sent to john.n.oliver.ctr at navy.mil<blockedmailto:john.n.oliver.ctr at navy.mil>
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Fed-talk mailing list      (Fed-talk at lists.apple.com<mailto:Fed-talk at lists.apple.com>)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/fed-talk/lnunez%40c3isecurity.com

This email sent to lnunez at c3isecurity.com<mailto:lnunez at c3isecurity.com>

 _______________________________________________

Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

Fed-talk mailing list      (Fed-talk at lists.apple.com<mailto:Fed-talk at lists.apple.com>)

Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:

https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/fed-talk/david%40joval.org

This email sent to david at joval.org<mailto:david at joval.org>

--

jOVAL.org: SCAP Simplified.
Learn More<http://www.joval.org> | Features<http://www.joval.org/features/> | Download<http://www.joval.org/download/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/scap-on-apple/attachments/20130129/9f9e0563/attachment-0001.html>